Faster USB External drive attachment?

I run Leopard and Parallels 3 on a 24" iMac 2.4GHz with 3G ram. When I go into WinXP using Parallels I sometimes want to attach the External WD USB 2.0 drive that's always attached to my computer. To switch this from connected to OSX to connected to WinXP in Parallels takes a long time, several minutes. I click on the USB icon in the lower right bar of the Parallels window, then click on USB External Drive. The drive is instantly removed from OSX (with an error msg) and then the wait begins. Up to 2 1/2 or 3 minutes it seems like.

Anyway to improve the speed of this changeover? Does Parallels 4 provide any relief?

Thanks

 

Further to this, I noted last night that my Epson photo printer connects instantly when I click on it in the USB connection drop down on the lower right of the Parallels window, whereas it still takes an eternity to connect the external HD.

Anyone got an idea about this? Thanks.

 

Update was published , which is right now available at http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=31764
The most of problem were fixed.
Please navigate to that link, and download build 3540
In post there are various instructions, how to fix problems.